Ontario Announces New Open Government Initiative

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne announced today a new Open Government initiative to “increase openness, transparency and accountability, and boost innovation and economic productivity.”

An engagement team has been formed to report back by the the Spring of 2014 on ways in which Open Government can be implemented to:

propel innovation and encourage economic growth through open data sets and more open information;

increase engagement with the people of Ontario while strengthening trust and confidence in the government;

enhance accountability and transparency.

The engagement team is promising. It is chaired by Donald G. Lenihan, who is currently leading an engagement initiative regarding amendments to the province’s Condominium Act. The team is diverse and includes Leslie Church, Global Communications and Public Affairs for Google Canada and Ray Sharma, founder of XMG Sudio Inc.

In a letter to the people of Ontario, Premier Wynne stated that data sets would be opened on issues such as gridlock, student achievement and wait times, and people will be able to vote on information they would like to access to help prioritize the order that data sets are made available. Each of the Government’s 27 ministries has been asked to develop a plan on how they will become open and engaged.

This post has been written with the assistance of Christie Gibson, Student-at-Law.

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DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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